Mathematical models for drug delivery to chronic patients

Abstract

Mathematically, analysis of drug delivery kinetics involves two moving boundary problems: diffusion front and eroding front. In this paper, we have models for drug delivery for the sites which can be enclosed by spherical shaped matrices covered by membranes and these problems are helpful for designing the drug delivery devices to deliver the drug inside from outside and a corresponding device supplying drug from inside. Once the time required for treatment and rate of drug delivery is known from medical diagnosis, this analysis can design a device releasing the drug/active agent over a long period of time. The purpose of such drug delivery is to achieve more effective therapies while eliminating the effect of over dosing and maintaining drug levels within the desired levels. The device may work on optimal use of drug and increase the patient’s convenience. The proposed models provide design for eroding tumor or chemotherapy to cancerous regions. The results have been obtained for steady state release rate, zero order release time and life time of the device and discussed. It has been observed that zero order time and life time increase by introducing a membrane of uniform thickness.